This book provides comprehensive reviews on our most recent understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying atherosclerosis and calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) as visualized in animal models and patients using optical molecular imaging, PET-CT, ultrasound and MRI. In addition to presenting up-to-date information on the multimodality imaging of specific pro-inflammatory or pro-calcification pathways in atherosclerosis and CAVD, the book addresses the intriguing issue of whether cardiovascular calcification is an inflammatory disease, as has been recently supported by several preclinical and clinical imaging studies. In order to familiarize researchers and clinicians from other specialties with the basic mechanisms involved, chapters on the fundamental pathobiology of atherosclerosis and CAVD are also included. The imaging chapters, written by some of the foremost investigators in the field, are so organized as to reveal the nature of the involved mechanisms as disease progresses.weiterlesen